Saturday, October 27, 2012

The Telegraph gets a sneak preview of what visitors will experience inside Europe's tallest building, the Shard, which opens to the public on February 1st 2013.

By Pete Fergusson

7:53PM BST 26th Oct 2012

Publicly accessible viewing spaces stretch from level 68 of the skyscraper to level 72. With the upper levels reaching 244m high, it is the highest vantage point provided by any building in Western Europe and is three times as high as Big Ben.

After passing through metal detectors and having their bags scanned, visitors will take a lift from the ground floor to a lobby on level 33 of the building. They will then take a separate lift to level 68. Lifts travel approximately six metres a second, with each of the two journeys taking 30 seconds.

Anders Nyberg, Chief Executive of The View from The Shard says he particularly enjoys looking down on neighbouring London Bridge station, which looks like "a model railroad" from the top of the giant tower.

"I would say it's a much greater view than the Eiffel Tower. I mean, for me, when I look out over Paris, so much of it is the same and here you have such a great diversity of architecture, of style, you know? Much more to look at."

Thursday, October 25, 2012

You will be divided in groups of 4-5 people each. All groups will receive a
copy of the following book: “Animalario Universal del Profesor Revillod”.

This book contains several
photographs of different animals existing all around the world. Each animal,
however, is cut into three different pieces: the front, the middle and the end.
You can combine the three different pieces of the various animals in order to
create a new fantastic one:

(E.g. “Corfangre”)

(E.g.
“Elenedillo”)

Your task is to make up at least two new animals and describe them.

This is your schedule:

1. On Wednesday 31st October, you must bring to class your student’s book, those photocopies about animal parts we’ve
been working with this week and any dictionaries
or additional material you consider useful.

You will be given the animal books
and you must work for the whole 50 minutes in order for you to make up the animals
and write the descriptions. At the end of the lesson, you will keep the animal
books with you as well as your handwritten descriptions.

2. At home, one member of each team must make a photocopy of the picture of each of the two animals chosen. He/she
must also type the descriptions with his/her computer. The final result must
include the following:

1. The name of the animal on the
top of the page.

2. The photograph of the animal below
the name.

3. The description of the animal
below the photograph.

4. The number of the group and the names
of the group members at the bottom of the page.

3. You can hand in your work in
either of the following ways:

a) You can print it and bring it to class. The deadline is Wednesday 7th November.

b) You can send it to our mail. The
deadline is, again, Wednesday 7th
November at 23.59.59. (The format can be .DOC .DOCX or .PDF).

-Your file identification must be
as follows: GROUP_NUMBER_CLASS.DOC. Example: GROUP_1_1B.DOC.

-You must fill in the “subject”
section of your mail messages with your group identification and the word “PBL”.

The groups will be as follows:

ESO 1A

Group_1_1A: Melanie, Antonio, Bruno, Ismael.

Group_2_1A: Lara, Alberto, Avelino, Ariana, Adrián.

Group­_3_1A: María, Andrea, Álvaro, Uxía.

Group_4_1A: Alejandro, Diana, Cristina Álvarez, Lelise.

Group­_5_1A: Mariña, Paula,
César, Aroa.

Group_6_1A: Sandra, Óscar, Vicente, Valentina.

Group_7_1A: Brian, Cristina Alonso, Sara, Naufal.

ESO 1B

Group_1_1B: Andrea, Geraldine, Adrián Roo, Guillermo Figueroa.

Group_2_1B: Adrián Alonso, Sasha, Pablo, Marta.

Group_3_1B: Iñaki, Marina, Felipe, Caroline, Gabriela.

Group_4_1B: Cándida, Isaac, Rodrigo, Yago.

Group_5_1B: Ángela, Guillermo Val, Breixo, Jacobo.

Group_6_1B: Javier, Diego, Ángel, Kevin.

Group_7_1B: Elena, Lucas, Juan, Yoel, Rubén.

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Coke Zero challenged unsuspecting train passengers to unlock the 007 in them for their chance to win exclusive tickets for the new James Bond movie SKYFALL. However, the exclusive tickets weren't free. People had to go the extra mile and unlock their inner 007 in less than 70 seconds to win.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Great Britain, British, England, English, United Kingdom… Some people have trouble in using these words correctly to refer to a language, a population or a country. In case you’re Galician, how would you feel if a foreigner calls you Castilian? I bet as frustrated as if someone from Wales was called English.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The chestnut, one of the symbols of autumn, is an edible fruit produced by trees of the genus Castanea native to northern temperate regions. The fruit is enclosed in a prickly husk between 4 and 11 centimetres in size which contains from 2 to 7 nuts.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

WKBT anchor Jennifer Livingston took a moment during Tuesday's morning newscast (Tuesday 2nd October 2012) to directly address a recent email she received from a viewer complaining about her weight:

"To the person who wrote me that letter — do you think I don't know that? That your cruel words are pointing out something that I don't see?" Livingston asked in response. "You don't know me. You are not a friend of mine. You are not a part of my family. And you have admitted that you don't watch this show. So you know nothing about me but what you see on the outside. And I am much more than a number on the scale."

Monday, October 8, 2012

Unfortunately,
many people still think that a translator’s job is only a matter of having a
dictionary and some resources such as the internet or translation manuals. Translation
involves much more than linguistic
knowledge: it also involves cultural knowledge. Moreover, as translation
is a process of creation, it involves creativity...

Do you
think you would be able to translate the following images with only a
dictionary? The
image is vital, as the translated text should fit in the same place of the image
as the original one does...

In this
image we have a bear. The word “bearly” does not exist but it was made up as a
derivation from the word “bear”. “Bearly” would sound exactly the same as “barely”,
which does exist and means “apenas / más o menos”.

“A nice” is pronounced the
same way as “an ice”

Piercing=a piece of jewellery
attached to pierced flesh

To be pierced= to have a piercing
done

Screw=tornillo

To be screwed= estar “atornillado” /
ser estafado

To keep someone in stitches=To make someone laugh a lotStitch=puntada, punto.

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only

Friday, October 5, 2012

Emoticons
were originally created for us to be able to express our mood via internet. However, another use has been given to them in this quiz. Each row of emoticons represents the name of a film. Your task for
this quiz is to discover what films are
hidden under those emoticons. 10 points as usual to the first student who
emails us the correct names IN ENGLISH of
the following 16 films:

Thursday, October 4, 2012

It is
funny, surprising (and, to some extent, comforting) to find old advertisements
like the one posted above when surfing the web.

The
aesthetics of the 21th century imposed by mass media show us skinny women as the
ideal beauty, and, as there’s business everywhere, many advertisements try to
present and sell consumers “miraculous” diets, pills or beverages of all kinds
that will guarantee a fast and effortless weight loss. Those, however, end up
being useless and dangerous for our health.

It seems
that in the 50s and 60s, the ideal beauty was totally the other way round, and
that women were more eager to have a curvy figure than to look as a skeleton.
Surprising as it may be for youngsters, advertisements then showed women
products to gain weight, in order not to be "tired-out" or "rundown".

In any case,
what also seems to be true is that even nowadays, when thinness appears to be
the ideal, curvy women rank first on the lists of the most desirable (Beyoncé,
J.Lo, Sofía Vergara, Christina Hendrix…). It’s not that we should believe the
Orquesta Mondragón when they claimed for really big women to be sexy, but, as
always, we should find a healthy balance.